lights out
by korel.c
Summary: He was out earliest in the morning, long before the moon set, Buster Sword dancing through the dust.


**lights out**

**A/N**: Written for a prompt in July; while it's not _precisely_ porny, there are hints in there. The prompt was '_small acts of kindness - "Good job out there."' _

* * *

Cloud -- no, _Private_ Strife, now -- had dreamed of being SOLDIER for as long as he'd been with Shinra. Fact was, though, that only the most fit and most deemed capable of coping were chosen for SOLDIER, and Cloud knew he didn't look like the best candidate; scrawny, skinny, a little effeminate. Even though he was up among the most fit in his platoon, regularly beating their times in endurance courses, he wasn't beating them by _enough._ Which meant...training.

But most worthwhile training in Shinra took place practically on-the-job; field experience mostly gained by sticking close to the company veterans and trying to stay alive long enough to learn a few tricks for the next time, because shit happens and anyone could die. And Cloud'd been enough around, thank you very much, to know that he wasn't invulnerable and anything could kill him.

So he trained outside the compound, every morning long before the moon set, waking up and silently sliding down the rusty ladder from the topmost rear bunk and padding out into the dusty flatlands outside.

A long time ago he had taken the time to make a scale model of a Buster Sword, filling the hollow blade with lead after he'd picked -- or rather, _tried_ to pick -- up a real Buster. Out under the yellow moon casting auras over the distant mountains, Cloud tried to dance a dusty kind of dance, blade whipping and striking, splitting the whirling dervishes that sprung up from the agile movements that he made.

The first night he tried it he did not quite succeed, attempting to heave a hip-to-shoulder slash and ending up with the blade thudding to the loose soil a rather long distance away and his butt travelling a rather short one.

The weeks passed, and Cloud grew more proficient in wielding his heavy, model Buster. He also grew somewhat overconfident about evading the guards and any observers as he snuck out before most of the other troopers awoke.

He gained his first observer.

Of course, Cloud would have had to be mako-enhanced to catch the flash of gold-flecked violet in the moonstreaming dust.

* * *

One or two field assignments later his platoon started noticing how their formerly scrawny brother-in-arms was lifting the same weights as them with great ease, though his enthusiasm and drive remained unchanged.

As his platoon retired again just before lights out to play cards and talk and joke, no one in Cloud's platoon saw him slip out of the door and out back into the desert area.

Burying the tip of the Buster on the ground like he'd seen the SOLDIERs do Cloud rested his mind for a short second before closing his eyes and taking on a ready position. Imagining his opponent before him he leapt, a cloud of dust puffing under his boots. He brought the sword around, swinging through his opponent -- and jerked back, eyes opening in shock as his wooden, lead-filled practice Buster meet a metal, almost light, real Buster. Cloud almost dropped his blade in surprise, and the SOLDIER twisted their contact, sending the hilt out of his fingers with a distorted jarring.

White teeth flashed for a moment, a SOLDIER's hair rising dark and fluff-spiky against the dim backdrop.

A moment before settling back into a ready position the Buster-wielding man sunk his blade into the ground and moved with blinding speed to fetch Cloud's Buster back into his nervous reach. Brown eyes stared up at the stranger for a moment, then smiled, determination sparkling in their depths. Cloud waited for the SOLDIER to ready his weapon in a one-handed grip, waited until he nodded.

Waited and waited and attacked.

* * *

Above the grounds a General looked out of his window and watched as two Buster-shaped swords crashed and parried and met and swept each other away, slower than SOLDIERs could have gone but much, much faster than a duel between non-enhanced troopers.

Behind him, an aide yawned and passed a folder over.

"Cloud Strife, sir, a private; he's been going missing most days in the mornings, barring assignments. We'd punish him except there's been no evidence of any illegalities."

"Leave him be." Calm voice, fluid action. "Zack Fair vouched for him, said he was training."

"Oh, well then..." Yawn. "I'd...best get back to sleep..."

"Do that." Sephiroth turned back to the window and watched the gold-washed blond and black spikes bobbing in constant patterns on the field below.

* * *

Cloud didn't know who that first SOLDIER had been but every night he'd been out since then a different SOLDIER had trained with him, with widely varying levels of skill. Swords, materia, even Limits were thrown at him, sometimes inhuman strength and speed, sometimes mako-enhanced perceptive skills, and he got better.

Come the next field assignment and they were riding to extinguish a swarming threat in Nibelheim, and they were fragments of memory; monsters and gunfire, good friends lying facedown in ditches and thoroughfares. Then he ran out of ammo and picked up a sword and then yellow moonlight and dust and faraway mountains came back to him all at once --

-- and he came back in stitches but with more than half his platoon alongside him, including his commanding officer, waiting out a turn each night by his recovering form. They made no objection to the SOLDIER, First Class, occasionally dropping by with food for the watchers to stare for a long time at the blond with concern in his gold-flecked eyes.

* * *

Cloud sat up in darkness and a hard bed and snores, hissing in pain as the stitches stretching across his neck protested.

The snores continued, but a lantern flickered on in the corner, and that first SOLDIER was there again, watching him eagle-steady.

They stared at each other over a gape of snores before the SOLDIER set down the lantern and grinned, a flash of white teeth.

"Good job out there."

Cloud smiled back, a lopsided one; a full grin would have pulled the stitches at the side of his mouth.

* * *

After he recovered Cloud continued to train with Zack early in the morning even before the moon had set, moon projecting a yellow aura over the distant mountains. But the best part of his day wasn't the clash of blade over blade but the brilliant grin that waited behind Zack's wooden, lead-filled Buster.

* * *


End file.
